Pack your bags and get ready to learn and explore—from cartography to canyoning challenges, Project Week 2025 will take students far and deep into cultural immersion, physical adventures, artistic creativity, and more.
This year, there are four new in-town and 10 new out-of-town offerings:
Each of these new P-Weeks is the result of a collaborative process from idea to implementation. Faculty develop their proposals over the summer, and some even get ideas in March, right after their previous project. Project proposals are due the third week of September. Then, a committee of about 15 faculty members—including administrators and representatives from each department—review submissions through multiple rounds.
Upper School Director Nick Baer emphasized the behind-the-scenes effort of planning P-Week trips. “It takes a lot of work, time, and thought to make a trip as rewarding as possible,” he said. “I know it can be stressful for teachers, so I try to ensure they feel supported in taking chances and proposing trips we might not have considered before.”
This year’s catalog ties together with a common theme of culture, specifically exploring new cultures at a deeper level.
“It’s more than just tasting food in a restaurant or going to a celebration,” Upper School Spanish teacher and Project Week coordinator Xavier Espejo-Vadillo said. “If you think about an iceberg, there’s so much you can see outside that’s the surface culture, but if you go deep, there’s so much you don’t see, but it’s still there. That’s the culture we want them to dig in [to].”
One such culture-focused project is Saturday Night Lights: Understanding British Football Culture in the UK, led by Upper School receptionist Sami Aday and Upper School history teacher Ernesto Cruz.
Inspired by the 2022 show “Welcome to Wrexham” and his own experiences as a lifelong soccer fan, Mr. Cruz aims to examine the history and community behind soccer. “I’m always interested, whenever I’m traveling, to see not just what soccer culture looks like in that country but also the teams we’ve never heard of,” he said.
In past years, Mr. Cruz’s projects typically focused on museums and primary sources, slipping in soccer elements about 20% of the trip. This year, he decided to flip the focus.
In planning the itinerary, Mr. Cruz reviewed seven league schedules to find ones that aligned with Project Week, prioritizing games featuring American players. However, scheduling women’s matches proved challenging. “We’re traveling during a break in women’s soccer, so there’s not a lot of women’s games,” he said. “I wanted to make sure I get as much gender equity as possible, but right now, there’s only one women’s game we can fit in.”
Despite the challenges in scheduling women’s matches, Mr. Cruz is thrilled to offer students a rare opportunity to experience soccer culture beyond the stadiums.
As Mr. Cruz finalizes plans to immerse students in the global soccer scene, other faculty members prepare for equally ambitious adventures in vastly different settings. Upper School math teacher and Project Week coordinator Ed Mahoney and Athletics Operations Coordinator Jamie McInerney will lead students in the Costa Rica Canyon Challenge, which will involve hiking, rappelling, and more. “I could not be more pumped,” Ms. McInerney said. “What better way to get to know someone than rappel down into a canyon with them?”
“Another element of the trip I’m looking forward to is the cultural aspect,” she added. “Getting to meet members of the community in the small town as well as challenging myself with my Spanish.”
While some students embrace adventure abroad, others will dive into creative expression closer to home. At Latin, in Soundscapes: A Week of Songwriting and Recording, Upper School English teachers Jim Joyce and Zach Duffy will engage with students at all levels to write and produce music.
“The hope is that everybody either writes a song or is featured in a song that they’ve recorded in GarageBand by the end of the week,” Mr. Duffy said. “We are hoping to have those songs pressed onto vinyl records that everybody gets a copy of.”
Mr. Duffy first got into songwriting and recording in 2002 when he came across cheap, accessible software that allowed him to unleash his creativity. Now, he hopes to motivate students the same way. “I want to inspire students to be just as excited about the idea of making things,” he said. “I see music as an extension of my love for English, creative writing, and language.”
However, Mr. Duffy acknowledged the flexibility needed to run the project. He said, “We’re gonna have to look at the group of students we’re working with and either pull back or push forward with our expectations for where we’re gonna get to by the end of the week. That’s the most challenging aspect.”
With such a variety of students’ experiences with music, Mr. Duffy hopes to inspire students to explore music through the Soundscapes P-Week. “I always hope that all of these experiences help students build a confidence that they didn’t know they had,” he said. “I look forward to a student who maybe has zero songwriting experience, but who by the end of the week is able to create a song or to contribute to a song.”
Sophomore Stella Tate Ricciardi-Fitzpatrick, who was placed in Mr. Joyce and Mr. Duffy’s Soundscapes, is excited about this new opportunity. “I’m pretty happy about it considering it was one of my top choices,” Stella Tate said. “I’ve always wanted to get into songwriting and producing. I’m really excited to work on a song as a group and learn about the process.”
Similarly fostering growth through active participation, Upper School Director of Student Life Tim Cronister and Upper School math teacher Andrew Sanchez will lead students in Hurricane Relief 2025. They will travel to North Carolina and the Tampa area to help families affected by Hurricane Milton. Students will rebuild homes, including putting up and knocking down drywall, installing doors, repairing roofs, and painting.
“There’s something incredibly rewarding about seeing the results of your hard work,” Mr. Sanchez said. “My hands have calluses after working so hard, but it brings great satisfaction afterward.”
This sense of reward comes with some uncertainty, though, about what the project will specifically entail. “We try to plan ahead, but we can’t do that because we don’t know until possibly two weeks before the actual Project Week,” Mr. Sanchez said. “There are other schools or organizations assisting the worksite, so we don’t know how far they’ll get. They may have cleaned up a good portion of that particular worksite and then need us to go to a different site. That changes the whole game plan.”
The weather poses another challenge, especially in unpredictable regions. “A lot of the work that we do is dependent on being outside,” Mr. Sanchez said. “If it’s raining, then we’re out of luck. So we’re gonna have to find alternative things to do, like working inside the home.”
Despite the uncertainty, the focus of the project will remain on service. “Students have to be really willing to be flexible and not know exactly what they’re going to be doing,” Mr. Sanchez said. “But in the end, you’re committing to the service and helping out.”
In addition to helping people in need, students will gain valuable skills applicable to their own lives. “I’ve built my own basement and finished it because of the things that I’ve learned from helping other homes,” Mr. Sanchez said.
Ultimately, Mr. Sanchez hopes the experience will leave students with a deeper appreciation for service. He said, “Instead of going on a vacation during that week if we can go help those people during that time, I think that’s just really meaningful.”
With such creative and meaningful new projects, junior Areli Figueroa said, “I definitely thought there was an upgrade from past years.”
Sophomore Serena Ayaydin agreed with Areli. “I love how they kept old favorites but also added in new things,” she said.
As P-Week garners positive feedback, Mr. Baer sees even greater possibilities for further expansion. “More trips to different parts of the world [are] really important,” he said.
“I’m a big believer in the variety of trips—whether it’s history, culture, community service, or adventure,” Mr. Baer added. “The future of Project Week is about exploring new parts of the world and offering even more diverse experiences.”
